R3 spec. and price

What have past development announcement to product announcement to product launch dates been like?

Bob Janes wrote:

GatanoII wrote:

R3 spec and price speculation

30fps Stacked BSI CMOS Sensor, with much improved AF and 'Eye input AF' that's what we know.

"speculations"

- 20fps mechanical (it's inside the 1DXIII, no need to reinvent the wheel)

- 45MP (A1 and Z9 are 50MP and R5 is 45MP, it's plenty, but anything less is not enough)

- 8k with unlimited recording time (a "little" improvement over the R5, similar to A1 and Z9)

- 4999$ (Canon is going to war ... to win the mirrorless war)

Hopefully they don't regard it as a war, because that (like any war) would not be in anyone's interests.

War, in economy, most often will lead to evolution, Sony lost many wars (the most famous VHS vs Betamax) and won some (Playstation) Canon is basically mostly a winner (EF mount and DSLR market share) .

Not in Canon's because they are pricing to hurt competitors rather than to return on investment and reinvest.

Canon will not have any loss with a camera like the R3 at 4999$, but the potential dominance (in the shortest time possible) in the"pro"  mirrorless FF arena will give them a huge advantage, lenses are more important than cameras, but a good selection of cameras needs to be available to win the lens mount war, the camera market is shrinking and changing at the same time, a winner, or a couple of winners, need to emerge, Sony started first, but Canon is arriving at a fastest pace than most expected,

Not for competitors who will have to cut their prices and then there is a race towards marginal profits or loss leaders...

Canon won the mount war started in 1987 more than 30 years ago, EF mount is dominant today, Canon now wants a similar victory for the R mount, it seems everything was planned way ahead, a fab that can make FF stacked BSI sensor is/was a surprise for most, many expected to took years before Canon could achieve similar results, but clearly Canon is hiding their weapons and show their potential only when needed, for sure they planned also the cost of this kind of innovations, Canon is not "cutting" prices they are just setting prices, this is where Canon is very good at planning, just don't forget the Canon EOS 300D, it was the time when the DSLR revolution truly started and was a price/performance war, but not at a loss, at least for Canon.

Not in the interests if consumers either, because competition and hope of profit drive progress. Why invest in new models if you can't make a decent return.

This is thinking like Olympus exit strategy, their business wasn't profitable and they had to withdraw and sell their business to someone else (hopefully more competent), Canon (or Sony) is not in this situation, both are still making profits, not as huge as it was in the past golden era of digital photography (before smartphone photography became huge), but still a very profitable business, at least for the few players that will survive the temporary Covid19 economic crisis that slowed down the unavoidable DSLR to mirrorless transition.

Canon is still the mayor camera manufacturer and by a huge margin, it's just changing their perspective from DSLR to mirrorless, till a couple years ago Sony was the only player in the FF mirorless market, now Canon (Nikon, Panasonic, etc ...) are in the same arena, but Canon Is already as good as Sony in the most critical aspects of mirrorless photography and has some advantages too.

Economy is always at a risk as profit is not always granted, at least not at the beginning (and Canon is at the start of a new r/evolution), but competition is always good.

In the past the price war was mainly at the lowest end of the camera market, but, at the end, the war was won by the smartphones camera manufacturers, today the camera business is changed, it's more upmarket and is turning to mirrorless cameras away from DSLR cameras.

In an upmarket camera business the "price war" can start in the middle and even at the top (Fujifilm GFX 100S is below 6000$ and is a "medium format" camera) , no need to fight at the bottom (although the sub 1000$ EOS RP already exists) so the existence of the R3 at a lower price than the A1 or Z9 makes perfectly sense and looks even smarter as still gives Canon the margin for an EOS R1 that could be more expensive.

The Bad Photographer wrote:

What have past development announcement to product announcement to product launch dates been like?

Covid19 supposedly changed some planning for many manufacturers, but the cameras projects were already in the pipeline and should be announced anyway, so the R3 could be officially announced with all the specs in June/July and be available few weeks later together with the R1

Remember the R6 was announced together with the R5, but all the development announcements were only about the R5, I suppose Canon will play a similar trick again, this time speaking of the development of the "lower" model R3, still coming with the official announcement with both models together, the EOS R3 and the EOS R1